In the environment of outdoor cookery on barbecue grills, or in larger commercial cookers, various apparatus have been developed for applying a basting sauce to the meat or food being cooked. The primary objects of the basting sauce are to flavor and moisten the foods being cooked, and/or to increase the smoke from the smoldering coals which are used to cook the food.
Although the present application is not to be construed as excluding commercially-sized grills or roasting ovens, or conventional residential stoves and ovens, more generally the invention described herein is used on smaller, residential or "backyard" barbecue grills. Such grills usually include a fuel pan, a meat-supporting rack above the fuel pan, and a hood which partially or fully encloses the pan. Previous devices used for applying a basting sauce to the cooking food are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,109,796; 3,022,721; 3,563,160; and 3,972,276. Two of these patents, U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,109,796 and 3,563,160, are generally directed to commercially-sized cookers and disclose complex basting systems which could not be utilized on home barbecues because large commercial ovens are not structured as, and do not function in the same manner as a barbecue grill. The other U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,022,721 and 3,972,276, devices for home barbecues, but the devices are manually operated and require constant attention if basting sauce is to be applied consistently. None of the prior art known to exist at the time of filing includes a basting apparatus that may be automatically or manually controlled to apply basting sauce, and which may be attached to the barbecue grill by the original manufacturer or may be retrofitted on existing grills.
The present invention, in a preferred embodiment, is a basting apparatus that dispenses sauce over the food being cooked or, alternatively dispenses a flavoring liquid directly on the burning coals to increase smoke and thereby improve the charcoal flavor of the meat or other food.
A preferred embodiment of the apparatus generally includes a sauce delivery tube with attached multiple spray heads suspended over the food or the coals, or both; which tube receives the basting liquid from a pressurized sauce supply bottle attached to one end thereof. A timer-controlled injection valve operatively connects the pressurized sauce bottle to the delivery tube and controls the injection of sauce into the tube and attached spray heads at predetermined time intervals.
As previously described, the sauce delivery tube and attached spray heads can be mounted in the hood portion of the grill, over the cooking food; or may be mounted between the inside surfaces of the walls of the fuel pan, between the food and the burning coals. If mounted in the hood portion, the preferred embodiment provides for adjusting the distance between the sauce delivery tube and the cooking rack, as will be described in detail below.
It is therefore a primary objective of the present invention to provide a basting apparatus for use on home or commercial barbecues; which apparatus automatically controls the application of basting sauce according to predetermined time intervals. Another objective is the provision of a basting apparatus which can be installed as a part of the original equipment or retrofitted on existing barbecue grills. Other and further modifications will become apparent to those skilled in the art as the following detailed description is studied in conjunction with the following drawings.